Twitter goes down. Productivity soars!

It was a busy morning around America today, with companies reporting a surge in productivity starting at around 9:00 AM EST. Office managers are puzzled. One reported that, "It was almost as if a switch had been flipped and all of the sudden TPS reports were being generated, phones began ringing and even interns were getting coffee faster!" The sudden increase in productivity has some economists wondering if it a sign of the end of the current economic crisis.

Thus far, the only event that is being pointed to as the cause for this upswing is a Twitter outage which apparently started a few minutes before the productivity boost began. While the exact cause of the outage is unknown, its effects extend far beyond productivity.

AT&T is enjoying a brief break from negative publicity over network performance issues, with stock prices up five points this morning. Analysts are unsure if it is due to the inability of users to share their complaints or if the Twitter outage has reduced network strain significantly.Without a known end for the Twitter outage, there's a possibility that today could result in record setting output in companies of all sizes. However, there is some risk involved.

One Human Resources expert, who asked to remain anonymous, cautioned employees to, "Throttle the new-found productivity, since any bumps in performance could lead to increased expectations from employers for the long term." He went on to explore the implications for the national unemployment rate. "It's possible that when Twitter returns, unemployment will rise as employers fire workers who cannot keep up their previous levels of productivity and start searching for individuals who are unaware of the social network."

If the outage lasts beyond lunchtime on the East Coast, expect Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Technology Czar Aneesh Chopra to meet with President Obama to discuss possibilities of leveraging this upswing for the long term. This could be dire news for Twitter addicts.